It’s a weakness of mine, it’s true. This is the first post on Millys Mini Kitchen with a DDL theme, but it’s frequently found in my kitchen. I love to pop it into baking- such as brownies or cupcakes, or use it as a filling or topping to something.

But do you know what’s even better? Eating it by itself, with a spoon. Bliss. It’s my guilty pleasure… I’m sure others have worse.

So, I’m sure you’ve heard of dulce de leche. But if you haven’t, well boy are you in for a treat! I swear that once you try it, you’ll be a DDL fanatic like the rest of us.

Hi. It’s been a while. There’s absolutely no excuse! But I have been a busy girl.

I’ve still been baking though, and I have some recipes to post.

I’ll be a better blogger! Bloggers promise.

It’s been a crazy summer, and now it’s autumn… I’ve moved flat, I’ve got a new job, a lot of things have been going on and it’s meant I have neglected MMK. I’ve even lost track of following others blogs. My gosh I’ve got a lot of reading to catch up on!!

I actually made these a few weeks ago, but I’ve been completely preocupied with many things… Firstly sorting out our new flat, which we move into tomorrow (eep!). Then, job hunting. I’ve actually been looking for a new job since April. It’s been… a challenge. I’ve been doing this course which I finished this month, and graduated with a distinction last week. Yay! I was offered a job today, which is great. In the meantime I went on a well deserved holiday last week to Rhodes, Greece. It was great to have a relax (or more like try to relax while I sorted out flat/job stuff)!

Anyway. These went down a treat. I couldn’t stop eating them! The cream cheese on the top gives a nice contrast to the chocolate, while the crunch of the choc chips give a hint of texture. Perfect!

PS. I won’t be updating for a month or so, as we have to wait ages for our phone line to be set up in the new flat. So, while I wait I’ll do lots of baking so I can update lots when I get back.🙂

We got the flat! Which comes with pros and cons of course. Pros; we have a bigger, nicer flat and we’re both very excited. Cons? Well, we’re going to have to pay an overlap of a month (£800) as no one has shown any interest in our little flat yet. Also on a stressful note, we have to pay around £2500 tomorrow for the new flat (deposit, month in advance, fees…). Ugh. Estate Agents.

There’s also been an interesting turn of events on the job front. I’ve had some interest from a brand in Dubai. Scary and exciting. Not sure if anything will come of it (or, indeed, if I could actually cope with living in the UAE. Without boyfriend of course.) but I wouldn’t say no to three times my salary over here plus… no tax.

I made this for a special someone, although the dough did not come out chocolately enough. Not sure why, as I put in more cocoa powder than needed… it came out slightly pasty compared to the original recipe. It meant I put in more chocolate, which made up for taste.

The banana gives a slightly moist texture to the bread, while also creating a slight tang to the chocolate bread. It’s good.

Those of you who have ever moved house or flat know how much of a complete and utter pain it is. Two weeks and 182427103 flats later (the exact number right there) and we’ve put a holding fee and offer down for a one bedroom flat a little further out of London (an extra 15 minutes on the bus). It may well be rejected as it’s under the asking price, but we’re still waiting on a response. Fingers Crossed.

It’s a lovely newly refurbished flat which even though is only a one bed, is much much bigger than where we live now. There’s even a separate kitchen! Even if it’s a little on the pokey side, I don’t care, at least it’s in a separate room to the living room.

It’s still a pain in the bum though; giving offers, negotiating, talking with estate agents, getting screwed over by your current estate agents (grrr)… I hope wherever we find we stay there a bit longer, because I don’t want to go through this again anytime soon!

On a separate, more upbeat, note (!) it was my boyfriend’s birthday recently, which gave me an excuse to go baking crazy. I decided to make him a key lime pie instead of a cake, as he prefers pies rather than cakes. I used to make this recipe all the time, but haven’t now for a good few years. So I decided to whip the recipe out and give it a go. The lime and sweetness of the condensed milk sit perfectly together, it’s magical!

For me, brownies are difficult to get absolutely perfect. It’s not just the ingredients, it’s the baking time. I’ve been known to not only overcook, but undercook my brownies also. It’s usually just me, being a perfectionist and all! I strive to get the perfect brownie.

The Hummingbird Bakery comes to the rescue with their recipe, which is so simple to make with lots of room to adapt. I brought these in for my last day at college, and people loved them! I personally thought I had undercooked them, but maybe because I popped them in the freezer overnight this could have helped.

I’ve changed the dark chocolate to milk chocolate. This may be too sweet for some, even though i’ve taken a bit of the sugar out, but for everyone they were really good. If this isn’t for you, and you want a bitter edge to your brownie, just change it back to dark chocolate! This recipe can be adapted to add nuts or whatever you want too.

Macaroni cheese, mac & cheese… it depends where you’re from as to what you call this. It can be boring or it can be very exciting. This is definitely the latter! I often make macaroni cheese as one of my “quick” dinners, when I don’t feel like slaving away for hours in the kitchen. It can happen.

This recipe is so SO good. It’s definitely tasty, and gives an extra something to a can-be-boring dish. The original recipe has tomatoes in, which I can agree with. My boyfriend however insisted that I “shouldn’t mess with a good thing”… Next time I’m cooking for myself I’m definitely adding the tomatoes in they don’t offend me, and sound like they’re gonna do good things to this dish.

Another thing, this gets better with age. Left-overs (If there are any) will go down really well!